Through Sunday, the school is the world headquarters of horndom, the meeting place for the 31st annual International Horn Symposium, and for many among the hundreds in attendance, it's a little bit like heaven.

Some of the best hornists in the world are in attendance, players like Frank Lloyd, whose Wednesday afternoon recital was the highlight -- so far -- of the symposium, according to 19-year-old twin sisters Hadley and Emily Jerman, members of a horn ensemble from Oklahoma University.

''He makes it look so easy!'' said Hadley in wonder.

Hadley is an art major and Emily an English major at OU, but like others here, their passion is the horn -- sometimes called the French horn -- which they took up together eight years ago and intend to keep playing well into the future. ''We both love horn,'' said Emily, who dreams, a little, of being a professional horn player. ''It's like one of those alternate-life things. I would do it, I just don't think I can,'' she said.

They were enjoying their first horn convention. ''There's people of all different ages, and everyone will talk to you,'' Emily said.

051999 Horns #1 in Metro 5/99

Bonnie Heath/Staff

Members of the Western University Horn Choir perform at the Tate Center Wednesday afternoon.

Bonnie Heath/Staff

''If you can't do a story on this bunch, you can't do a story,'' said Phil Hooks of Finksburg, Md. Hooks, a music teacher, has been playing the instrument for 50 years and has been coming to the international meetings for 20 years. His passion for the horn has taken him to some far-flung places.

Usually, the annual meeting is in a U.S. city, but last year, the meeting was in Banff, Canada; next year it's scheduled for Beijing, he said.

''The idea of missing it doesn't enter my mind,'' he said.

''We look forward to this for months ahead,'' said friend Timothy Allport of Tarrytown, N.Y., and professor of business management at Mercy College of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

Allport played the instrument in high school and college, but then gave it up. Then, 10 years ago, the International Horn Symposium had its annual meeting in Potsdam, N.Y.

Allport dropped in to check it out, started playing the horn again, and now plays with the Hudson Valley Wind Symphony. He's also attending his 10th straight meeting of the International Horn Symposium.

It's one of the advantages of what he calls ''the best thing I ever did'' -- a career change 15 years ago. After 16 years as a bank vice president, Allport became a college teacher in 1984 -- so when school ends in early May, he's free to do things like go to weeklong horn conventions, he explained.

The horn may not be as well-known to the public as other instruments like the violin -- a lot more people know who violinist Itzhak Perlman is than know who Frank Lloyd is, he conceded. But that's not the point.

''We play it because we love the sound,'' Allport said.

The week's activities aren't all about music. There's a golf tournament, in addition to dozens of classes, lectures and recitals given by top hornists and teachers.

There's even a kind of musician's marketplace. Dealers in musical instruments, sheet music and other music-related items have come from all over the country to set up temporary shop here. Classrooms are lined with row after row of gleaming horns, ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to $10,000 and more.

Most of the instruments are modern, with finger-operated stops that allow the hornist to change notes by pressing a lever to change the length of the column of air resonating inside the horn.

But the conference also brought people who are specialists even in the context of this specialized world, people like Richard M. Seraphinoff of Bloomington, Ind., who is maker of historical instruments and a top practitioner of the ''natural'' horn.

A natural hornist has no stops to produce notes, but produces notes with the mouth and by reaching inside the instrument's flaring bell to change the height and shape of the air column, explained Viola Roth, Seraphinoff's wife -- herself a free-lance hornist.

Other rooms in the makeshift bazaar seemed to have every possible need for a horn player -- mutes, slide oil, CDs of top soloists and groups, sheet music and the like -- even a book called ''The business: The essential guide to starting and surviving as a professional horn player.''

The symposium continues through Sunday and includes several concerts that are open to the public.

Today and Friday at 12:15, horn groups will be performing outdoors downtown on College Square and on the UGA campus at the Tate Center and at the Forest Resources Building's garden.

There are also three remaining concerts in UGA's Hodgson Concert Hall. The horn section of the New York Philharmonic performs Friday night at 8:30. Several more groups will perform Saturday at 8 p.m. and on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The week's closing concert will feature the top artists and groups at the symposium.

On Sunday morning at 11, nine college horn groups will be playing in area churches.